hack: Gate of Uroboros
by RyougaZell
Summary: As Haseo comes into terms with his past, and as Kite comes into terms with his marriage to BlackRose.. a new treat emerges to threaten the Twilight Knights and lead them to the very origin of the Twilight. Direct Sequel to hack//Gathering of the Unwilling


**.hack//Ga****te of Uroboros**

Prologue and Chapter 01

Started Chapter: 31-December-2009  
Finished Chapter: 31-December-2009  
First Post: 01-January-2010  
Last Edit:

Disclaimer:  
All original materials belong to their respective owners. Dot Hack belongs to Bandai and CyberConnect2. No copyright infringement is intended.

Warning:  
This is a direct sequel to .hack//Gathering of the Unwilling. If you want to understand what is happening here, go read it first.

* * *

**Prologue**

**- Omega Hidden Holy Twilight, Twilight Knights Headquarters - Game -  
- 09:05 PM, Saturday December 23, 2017 -**

The night sky lit in a wide arrangement of colors as the fireworks exploded. Music could be heard all around the grounds, filled with a wide number of stores around the gardens around the castle. The sound of the running water was being drown by the happy chattering of the users walking around the headquarters of the Twilight Knights. The area created by Aura was currently celebrating the upcoming real-life wedding of Kite and BlackRose although just the top ranking members of the new group named by Aura herself, The Twilight Knights, knew about. Like other special headquarters, the Twilight Castle, had opened its doors to the public, but unlike other areas, constant changes occurred on the area. For instance, the area did not remain on a permanent night state. Sunlight tended to pour out once in a while, allowing the users to enjoy the beauty of the area with or without sunlight. The current festival, though, has maintained the area in a nighttime state ever since it begun a few days ago.

A certain silver haired player yawned as he watched the festival occurring on the grounds. He rested his chin on a hand, as he glanced at the abyss between the grounds and the castle itself. The grandiose castle itself floated in the skies. It had floors growing both up and down the grounds. If you glanced at it from the distance, you could say it looked as if the lower part was a reflection of the above. Curiously, you can see the Castle at the skies of Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground, even though technically it belonged to another server, in the same fashion you could glance at Mac Anu from the Net Slum Tartarga. The gardens, united to the Castle via several medieval style bridges, ran in a complete circle all around the structure. Several lakes existed around it, with water running among them and even falling directly to the abyss, creating a breath taking scene.

- "Aside from the little fact of this being a flying castle... it kinds breaks reality that water keeps flowing without end..." - The silver haired PC murmured to himself. His eyes were golden and two red marks ran from below his eye sockets down to the middle of his cheeks. His character model, which was silver with several golden accessories around his body, did not help to identify him as an Adept Rogue, since his character had been illegally modified once by a very skilled and powerful user. The name of the silver haired PC was Haseo, sometimes dubbed as 'The Terror of Death'

- _'Big Sister really threw the house out with this area' _- A voice resonated through the teen's mind. Haseo rolled his eyes in response. He did not freak out at the voice passing through his brain. At first he had been somewhat annoyed at it, but soon became used to it. The owner of the voice was none other than his Avatar, the real Terror of Death, Skeith. Ever since the encounter with Morganna, in which Skeith revealed his connection with the boy, Haseo had begun to slowly recover his childhood memories. A side effect of he recovering the memories, which had been long embedded in Skeith, was their current connection.

- "Yeah, yeah..." - Haseo yawned once more. He stretched in real life, making his character mimic his movements. His head rose as he heard a twinkling sound approaching. A flickering light floated towards him until it stopped in front of his face. - "Hey Emi..."

- "Yo! Haseo!!" - A tiny voice, full of spunk, came from the light. As it dimmed down, Haseo saw the Fairy Sprite being known as Emi. She had deep green hair and the blackest eyes you could see. She had elf-like ears which fell to the side of her head, contrary to normal pointy elf ears. Haseo once joked they resembled Gaspard's ears, which only made the Sprite pout. Her pale creamy skin was covered on a one piece forest green suit which left her shoulders and back bare. A transparent skirt surrounded her waist. She had four transparent baby blue wings growing on her back. Her tiny feet were bare. Emi, as Lycoris and Zefie had named her, had been created by Aura, to maintain the stability of the Lost Ground. She also acted as the Twilight Knight's Guild managing creature instead of a Grunty. She tended to act a bit tomboyish and completely detested when people tended to gauge her based on her size. She, like the Grunties, was an AI. Lycoris and Zefie considered her as a little sister. - "You alone today? Were is Alkaid?"

- "She went offline a while ago. Said something about she and Rena having a girl's night out with Akira-san and the rest." - Haseo answered bored.

- "Oh!" - Emi's mouth went wide. - "Think they are going to have strippers?! - She blushed. Haseo lost the grip on his chin and his forehead crashed on the rock rail.

- "Emi!!" - He scolded. His left eye twitched as he saw the tiny fairy pressing her hands over her tiny cheeks, flying in circles in her place, embarrassed.

After Emi finally calmed down, she sat on Haseo's shoulder and snuggled to his neck. The fairy had grown fast on every member of the Twilight Knights, specially the top tier which consisted of the previous Dot Hackers and Epitaph Users, dubbed as the Infinity Eight. Around 'The World' the Twilight Knights were known as a recently created Guild that somehow had appeared out of nowhere and had grown exponentially in just a few weeks. Rumors flew around when people noticed that some of their members were the ones that had appeared on television during the AIDA-television-infection, as it came to be known, and that their character models were clearly based from the R1 version of the game. It did not help that renowned players like several of Moon Tree's High Council or the ICOLO Emperors were also members. Join requests began to flood several of the member's inboxes until they took a page from Haseo's book and placed the heaviest filters on them. Many players were discouraged, or even suspicious, when it was made clear that the 'guild' was not open for registration.

As Aura had promised, all the players that had been trapped within the Outer Dungeons, and had received her blessing, were invited to join. Promises to keep things secret were made, but with all big groups, things were a bit difficult to control, and as such, rumors began to fly around. Emi heavily scolded the players she discovered chatting about such delicate matters. One thing that the Dot Hackers and Infinity Eight had agreed on, was to keep the full truth to themselves. Most of the lower ranks in the guild knew the event had been real, but most ignored the real truth behind it all. Their reality had been left at what the rest of the world knew. The story behind it all having been caused by Amagi Jyotaro's virus, AIDA. The real story behind Morganna's origin, plus Aura's existence, had been left in the dark. Outside the Dot Hackers and Infinity Eight, only those from Moon Tree's remaining High Council, ICOLO's Emperors and several other trustworthy members, like Albireo, Midori or even young Infini knew the full story.

- "So what have you been up to?" - Haseo asked the tiny sprite.

- "The usual." - The fairy pouted. - "Managing this place is tiresome." - She yawned. - "Wish I could see Kite-sama and BlackRose-sama's wedding" - She pouted again.

Haseo snickered at her sad remark. He, like everybody else, knew the fairy held a very big interest on real-life affairs. She probably also browsed all over the NET for information regarding weddings. - "I will get you some photos of the event. Maybe I can get a video for you as well."

- "Really?! Thank you!!" - She clapped her tiny hands in excitement.

- "Yo, Haseo. Emi." - A new voice called them. Haseo completely ignored the text box and glanced directly at the owner. The green haired orange suited Twin Blade known as Kite, leader of the Dot Hackers.

- "Hey. Should you not be preparing for the wedding?" - Haseo questioned as Emi flew from his shoulder to snuggle affectionately on Kite's cheek.

- "I was. But I wanted a break." - He said as he rested on the stone rail and glanced at the grounds. - "I see the festival is still going strong."

The two male remained in silence as the glanced at the festival below. Emi glanced at both and smiled. She, like others, also felt their powerful presence, but unlike others who felt intimidated, she felt at ease around them. Probably because both of them held Aura's blessings in them. Skeith's presence on Haseo had scared her at first, but soon came to love even the big softy Skeith was. Both Kite and Haseo were considered, by many, as the GuildMasters behind the Twilight Knights, but in reality neither of them held the position. Neither had wanted to take the post when it was offered after all. Haseo had argued that managing Canard was enough for him while Kite said he was not fit to lead, which was obviously and loudly refuted by all his friends. When both of them refused the post, and after trashing Piros the 3rd and Kazubolo's self nomination's to be GuildMasters, it was decided that the position would be given to a player that held strong ties with all the groups and had a very strong love for both Aura and 'The World', thus Yata was given the position.

- "Nervous?" - Haseo broke the silence.

- "Very much..." - Kite chuckled.

- "I know what you need to clear your thoughts..." - The Adept Rogue smirked.

- "Monster trashing?" - Kite smirked back.

- "You got it" - Haseo caresenned Emi's head as he began to walk away. Kite gave his own farewell to the tiny fairy and followed the Adept Rogue towards the Chaos Gate. Emi simply stretched as she flew down to the festival.

From the festival grounds a man, sucking on a lollipop, smirked as he saw both Kite and Haseo disappear from the Castle's outer halls. He twirled around and walked towards the Chaos Gate. He stopped as he glanced at a store selling balloons with printed faces. - "She would kill me if I returned empty handed..." - He shrugged and bought a balloon with Zelkova's face printed on it.

* * *

**Chapter 001**

**- ****Theta Returning Doomed In-laws, Cloister Dungeon - Game  
- 09:35 PM, Saturday December 23, 2017 -**

Kite could not help but sweatdrop as he saw the Keywords Haseo had chosen for their monster trashing. He had wondered why the silver haired teen had suddenly begun to snicker as he choose them. Now he could see why. He glanced at him and gave him a glare as Haseo simply shrugged him off. The two of them had become friends after the events of months prior, but they never missed the chance to try and bait the other. A very minimal animosity still existed between them thanks to Skeith, even if the Phase-turned-Avatar had changed.

- "You just had to choose those keywords, did you not?" - Kite asked.

- "Hey, it fits." - Haseo smirked. - "Dunno about her parents... but you are getting Kazu as a brother-in-law. That's very doomed in my opinion." - He said as he materialized his Twin Blades.

Kite could not help but chuckle in response. He remembered Ryou's initial reaction towards Kazu the day after the whole mess. - (_Who is the annoying dork?_) - He really appreciated Hayami Fumikazu both as a friend and future brother-in-law, but he also understood Haseo. Kazu tended to become a bit annoying now and then, specially if Sayu, Ouka's player and Kazu's girlfriend, was not around. - "Fair point..." - He said as he too materialized his Twin Blade. He still felt a bit strange about not having his blades with him all times. He was a bit put off when he learnt his character, which had been hacked and integrated into the new system, also had this functionality. He clearly preferred having them out all the time, but understood that when things changed, you had to change as well.

Satou Hiroshi, Kite's player, knew things could never remain the same. Life had clearly given him a lesson on it. If someone had told him, ten years ago, that he would become a net hero and would be marrying a famous older girl, albeit she had not been famous when they meet, he would have laughed on his or her face. Now, at age 21, he was about to take the most important step on his life by marrying the girl he loved, Hayami Akira, also known as BlackRose of the Azure Storms. She was two years older than him, but neither of them seemed to care about this. Akira's parents had not agree with her dating a boy two years younger when she was sixteen and finishing high school and he was only fourteen and finishing middle school. His parents also raised several concerns about his relationship, but happily for the couple neither set of parents raised more complaints as time passed and their mutual love was proved.

Kite was brought back from his thoughts by the sound of shattering vases, as Haseo cracked several of them trying to kick a Chim Chim that escaped his onslaught. The tiny purple creature ran as fast as it could. Sadly, for it, it did not see that Kite was on its path. The creature saw him to late and received a very well placed kick on its face, sending it crashing away. - "Hey! That was mine!"

- "Finders, keepers!" - Kite threw a V-sign at Haseo, who only grunted in answer.

- "Whatever..." - Haseo grumbled as he opened a chest. He tossed the scroll to the ground in annoyance. - "Tch... another useless scroll..."

- "Why do you not take it anyway? Someone may want to buy it in Canard's store." - The green haired teen picked up the discarded scroll.

- "Nah... I gave Silabus and Gaspard a ton of them last time. No one buys the damn things, so they just take space." - Haseo answered and Kite threw the scroll back inside the chest.

- "Ah..." - Kite acknowledged. He had met with Haseo's friends once. Despite not having been involved in the mess with Morganna, both were usual visitors at the Twilight Castle. Neither had asked to join, contrary to many other players, but Kite thought they could probably be good members. Both held an extreme respect for others and always seemed to go the extra mile to help those in need. - "Have you thought of inviting them to the Twilight Knights?"

Haseo glanced at him as he jumped out of the way of the rolling rock on the stairs. - "I did tell them if they wanted to." - He answered. - "They asked me if I would disband Canard. When I told them that Canard would stay, they accepted. I told Emi a few days ago about it. She said she was going to ask either Lycoris or Zefie to unlock a pair of invitations. I have not received them yet."

- "Ah. I see." - Kite nodded. As Haseo had pointed out, the only way to join the Knights was through invitation. And those invitation could only be unlocked by either of Aura's daughters or Aura herself. When Aura had proposed to unlock the invitations for them, Kite had refused stating that he wanted to be on the same level as the others, as much as he could considering he was the wielder of the Bracelet.

The two of them continued to ascend through the cloister destroying every monster they encountered and kicking every Chim Chim in sight. After several more fiascos with scrolls, both begun to completely ignore the vases and chests. Haseo told Kite that cloisters were a nice place to fight boss monsters, but they tended to have crappy items lying around. The only good treasure came from the Beast Statue at the top of the Cloisters.

- "So a western-style wedding huh?" - Haseo asked as he slashed a goblin.

- "Yeah. Akira said she wanted to wear a white dress." - He smiled. - "And I really can not wait to see her on it..."

- "Or take her out of it?" - Haseo suggested and Kite missed a slash and fell on his face. - "Hey!!" - He blushed in embarrassment.

Haseo openly laughed at Kite's reaction. Skeith, in his mind, chuckled as well. The old Misaki Ryou would not openly joke like this, but it seemed the gradual recovery of his memories had also brought a bit of Sora's personality onto him. He would never become like he used to be in the past, but he could at least not be that grumpy. Chika, Alkaid's user, definitely did not dislike Ryou's slight change. It felt fresh and right for he to become a bit more relaxed around people. Ryou, though, clearly said he was going to continue to be 'grumpy', as Alkaid dubbed him, while at school, arguing he had an image to maintain.

- "I liked you better when you did not make jokes..." - Kite grumbled. He had not known Ryou for more than two months, but according to what all his new friends had said, the old Haseo rarely joked, if ever.

- "An tells me its because of Sora..." - Haseo whispered, referring to Tsukasa's player. Like promised, all those years ago, Shoji An had sought him to be his friend. He had felt a bit awkward the day they met, for An's first reaction was to tightly hug him. What was with girls he barely knew hugging him anyway? Akira's first reaction had been to hug him as well. And while not first reaction, both Mai, now girlfriend of Tomonari Kasumi aka Kuhn, and Nimura Junko, Carl's player and daughter of Tokuoka, had also given him extra long hugs after he was returned to the hospital after he had fixed things with Chika. He blushed as he remembered his bold move to kiss her even before they officially became a couple.

- "You remembering things?" - Kite asked.

- "Some. For the most part, its a weird collage of images. Its kinda hard to understand most of them, but Skeith helps me to sort them out." - He shrugged. Kite shuddered a bit at the mention of the phase. He still had to come to terms with the knowledge that the Phase-turned-Avatar was inside his new friend. - "So... how do you feel anyway? Still rusty?" - He smirked

- "You wish." - Kite rose his blade. - "We should probably have a match in the Arena one of this days. I can show you my skills then."

- "Whenever you want." - Haseo challenged. - "I can show everybody how the great Kite loses against the undefeated Tri-Emperor."

- "Yeah right. I can wipe the floor with you any day." - The Twin Blade pointed his index finger at Haseo. - "Level does not matter to me. And I do not mean the Bracelet, I do not need it to kick your ass!" -

- "Well then, I do not need neither Skeith nor my Dual Guns to kick yours." - Haseo glared. - "You may have been a legend once, but now you are just a rusty old timer!"

- "Want to test me?" - Kite glared back as he rose his blades.

As both of them backed away, ready to clash blades, a sudden scream, coming from the stairs, earned their attention. Kite signaled at the stairs, with his head, and Haseo nodded. They had made a complete turn around on their attitude. Both Akira and Chika had, once, mentioned that it seemed that it was in their nature to be at each other's throats most of the time. It was the way they showed their friendship.

- "Lets go..." - Haseo whispered and Kite nodded. They walked as silently as they could through the last stairways, before arriving at the top floor where the Beast Statue resided.

Both players glanced through the door's opening, trying to locate the source of the scream. What they saw made Haseo clench his teeth in anger whereas a frown covered Kite's face. A player, a Lei Tribe male laid PKed on the floor, transformed into a gray corpse. Two females, a Lei Tribe Harvest Cleric and Human Twin Blade if Kite could guess correctly, stood on the floor with the Lei Tribe female trembling as she hugged the Female Human, who glanced at the group. They were surrounded by a group of ten players, whose race and class varied greatly. PKs, and they clearly outnumbered them. One of them, the leader it seems, had his foot over the chest of the fallen male.

- "Kyahaha!!" - The PKer laughed. - "That is what you get when you challenge me!!" - He mocked. He had a black and purple full body suit with white shoes and a red scarf around his neck. His hair was styled as punk. His sword, still wet with the virtual blood of the fallen player, identified him as a Blade Brandier. - "So... who is next?" - He leered at the female players. His group began to laugh in answer.

- "How about you?" - Haseo suddenly said behind the PKer, making his eyes go wide. He was kicked away from the fallen player, sending the PKer crashing unto the wall. - "Reapers Dance!!" - Haseo activated his Flick Reaper skill, sending several surprised PKers flying to their doom.

Before any of them could react, Kite had joined the melee. He was usually against raising his weapons against normal players, but the existence of Player Killers made him mad. He missed the days of R1 when such actions were forbidden for a time. - "Saber Thunder Dance!" - He invoked a skill infused with thunder element.

- "Who the hell did that!!" - The leader of the PKs screamed in rage, as he stood up, holding his spinning head. - "Anyone messing with the great Cervantes deserves the death penalty!!" - He roared as he opened his eyes. His mouth fell open and his eyes went wide when he saw all of his followers defeated on the floor. - "Eh?"

- "Tch... Cervantes... you still around?" - Haseo grumbled. Cervantes, once a Chaotic PKer known as the Greedy, recognized by CC Corp itself, on the BlackList Quest, had lost his position some time after Haseo himself had defeated him.

- "You know him?" - Kite asked as he kneeled besides the females. The Lei Tribe female thanked him and ran towards the fallen male, using a recovery item Kite had given her. He helped the female human to stand up. She seemed uninterested at what was happening, despite almost having been PKed.

- "Yeah. A scum from the BlackList. I defeated him once." - Haseo answered. - "Is greenie okay?" - He asked referring to the girl's green hair and clothes. The only reaction Kite saw on her, on response to the name, was a slight twitch on her sole eye. The girl had an eyepatch over her left eye.

- "I take offense on that name..." - The girl said before walking towards the Portal to gate out.

- "Oh, thank you for saving me!!" - Haseo tried to imitate a female voice. - "Bah!"

- "I also take offense from the name, you know?" - Kite glared.

- "Whatever." - Haseo said. - "And pray tell, where are you going?" - Cervantes stopped cold in his tracks. He was trying to slip out of the room while Haseo and the other player argued.

- "Uh... I think I left the water boiling..." - Cervantes began to sweat.

Haseo's glare was the last think Cervantes saw before his world went black.

* * *

**- Canard atHOME, Net Slums Tartarga - Game -  
- 10:5****5 PM, Saturday December 23, 2017 -**

Haseo stretched his arms as he sat on the couch in the main room of his Guild. He had given Kite a guest key to join him inside. They would have returned to the Twilight Castle, but they wanted the peace and silence the Lost Ground could not give them thanks to the ongoing festival. Neither Gaspard nor Silabus were around. Death Grunty was also absent, probably having a reunion with the rest of his kind. Haseo was a bit surprised when he learnt that all Grunties were AI placed by Aura to monitor 'The World'. It certainly explained how they imitated features of their GuildMasters.

Since the events of two months ago, four members had joined Canard, increasing the number of members to eight. Alkaid, Sophora and Rena had joined, only to be shortly after joined by Shuugo. The three girls were old friends and now that they had gathered inside the game they tended to stick together. Shuugo's reason to join was obvious to Haseo. The sis-complex kid did not want to leave Rena alone anywhere. Haseo only allowed him to join on the condition that he helped other players, as per Silabus' old motto. After several whining on his part, and threats from Haseo, Shuugo had accepted. Thus, they had joined the other Canard members, Haseo, Silabus, Gaspard and Atoli. Atoli had not been online much after the events of two months ago, but Haseo talked to her now and then. It seemed she also had constant contact with both Alkaid and Shino. The girl had gone through a very traumatic experience because of AIDA and Sakaki, but it seemed she was moving on and Haseo was happy to learn things were becoming better for her regarding her parents.

- "So before all this craziness happened..." - Haseo said, earning Kite's attention. - "I asked... why a western-style wedding?"

- "And I told you... Akira wanted to wear a white dress." - Kite answered.

- "Oh yeah... you did... you also said about wanting to see her wearing one and..." - He was interrupted by a thrown dagger.

- "Do not repeat that joke..." - Kite warned and Haseo shrugged. - "Anyway... we are still having a traditional Shinzen-shiki wedding first. Only family though. We will be holding that one in the morning. The afternoon reception will be the western-style one."

- "Ah. Then you do get to see her both in a White Dress and a Kimono." - Haseo whistled. - "Two wedding then? You guys are crazy..."

- "Kinda." - Kite laughed. - "But yeah..."

- "Be sure to get pictures of the Shinzen-shiki for us. I promised Emi to get her video from the Western-style reception. Aura will probably want to see them too. And lets not forget Lycoris and Zefie. By Aura... specially Zefie. She has a very mean right hook." - The silver haired teen pointed out.

- "So they tell me. Shuugo seems to be her favorite punching bag." - Kite snorted. - "I will get them, do not worry. Your girlfriend probably wants to see them too, though I expect she already asked Akira about them."

- "She probably did. Girl's night out huh?" - Haseo frowned. - "I shudder to think about what they do there..."

- "I hope nothing extreme as Yasuhiko tried..." - Kite sighed remembering what his friend had done. He had stated that like any healthy young male, strippers were needed on his bachelor's party. He blushed remembering what happened.

- "Oh yeah... that..." - Haseo blushed as well as the blood rushed to his head. - "Thankfully your other friend, what was his name again? The dude behind Balmung..."

- "Akio-san." - Kite answered.

- "Yeah him. Thankfully he stopped him before those girls began their show. Seriously... where does he think we are? America? I mean... not that I am not interested... but Chika would kill me if she ever learnt of that." - Haseo shuddered.

- "Akira likewise... and with Kazu's lose mouth... she would probably learn about it. Either through him or Sayu. She has always been able to get everything out of him." - The green haired teen sighed.

- "He is a wuss..." - Haseo stated.

- "Well... I do not think the girls will do anything like that... I think Mayumi-san was taking Mireille-chan with her." - Kite yawned.

- "You should log out and get some rest. You have a very long day ahead." - Haseo advised.

- "Yeah... you are right." - Kite stood up. - "Thanks for helping get some stress out Ryou."

- "Anytime Hiro." - Haseo said as he saw Kite logout. Both had saved their games before entering the Guild, so their data was safe. Haseo followed suit and logged out.

* * *

**- Misaki Ryou's Apartment, Tokyo - Real Life -  
- 11:25 PM, Saturday December 23, 2017 -**

Ryou ate a small dinner, while watching TV, which he had prepared himself after logging out. He chuckled as the news reported about Tennis Star Hayami Akira's upcoming wedding. It seemed that everybody was aware of the upcoming union. His mind idly flew through the window and images of Chika in a white wedding dress or a formal wedding kimono filled his mind.

- "Tch... what the hell am I thinking?" - He scolded himself as he shook his head.

- '_Ummm... Interesting thoughts... wonder if we can make them more interesting... can you make them dirtier?' __**- **_Skeith told Ryou, who choked on his soda.

- "Goddamnit!! You freaking pervert! Go to sleep or something!!" - Ryou blushed.

- _'Yeah yeah...'_ - Skeith ended the connection.

- "Tch... so thats where the pervert jokes about Akira-san came from... I am seriously going to kick his butt one of this days...." - He glared at the table. When his phone began to ring his frown died down.

- "Hey... how is my Empress?" - The brown haired teen smiled as he laid on his bed.

- _"Little me? Fine. What about my Emperor?" _- Chika's voice reached Ryou's ears.

* * *

**- Satou Hiroshi's parents home, Tokyo - Real Life -  
- 11:25 PM, Saturday December 23, 2017 -**

After logging out, Hiroshi did the last preparations he had left for the last moment. He had calmed down his nerves a bit after playing 'The World' alongside Haseo, yet his nerves became a wreck once more after logging out. It was not that he was not sure about the wedding. Heck, he was completely sure he wanted to do it. He loved Akira with all this life. What he was afraid was not of marriage, but about messing it up. Both of the weddings, Japanese-style and Western-style, were very important for both he and Akira. He did not want to mess either.

He continued to toss in bed, unable to fall asleep, until his phone began to ring. The ringtone signaled him that the caller was none other than Akira. - "Hey sweetie..." - He said.

- "_As I expected... you are awake._" - Akira's sweet laughter warmed his heart. - "_And knowing you... you are clamping out at the moment right?"_

- "Am I that obvious?" - Hiro sighed.

- "_Well... a bit. I love you, remember?"_ - She said. They continued to talk for a while and through all their chat, Hiro knew things would be okay. His nerves calmed down as he heard her voice. Her own nerves were calmed down as she heard his voice as well.

* * *

**- Delta Sneering Failing Empire, Kestrel atHOME - Game -  
- 11:00 PM, Saturday December 23, 2017 -**

A completely enraged Cervantes trashed several weak looking goblins, which roamed around the atHOME freely. He screamed his frustration as he slashed the creatures. The looks of pity other of his guildmates gave him enraged him to the core. Those bastards had dared to mock him.

- "Damn him, Damn him, Damn him!!" - He continued to shout.

- "Its your own damn fault, you know?" - A female voice said. Cervantes glared at the woman, who sat on a set of stairs. She had golden hair, grey eyes, a green tattoo on her forehead and was wearing a purple princess-like gown. She glared darkly at Cervantes.

- "Shut it Kaotin!! I do not need to hear your crap!" - Cervantes shouted.

With an impressive speed and skill, Kaotin suddenly jumped at him and Cervantes found himself in the floor with the girl over him. Her lance, signaling her as a Lord Partizan, stood impaled on the floor, just besides his head. - "Watch it Cervantes... you will respect me."

Cervantes glared at her as he began to tremble.

- "You are just a damn coward..." - Kaotin whispered at him. She stood up and began to walk away. - "Get stronger if you want revenge on them, you damn baby." - She mocked.

Cervantes hit the floor in a fit of rage. - "Damn you..." - He heard footsteps and rose his head in fear, thinking Kaotin had returned. His eyes widened upon seeing that the source of the footsteps was the eyepatched girl he had tried to PK before. - "What are you doing here? Come for revenge?" - He stood up.

- "Do you want power?" - The girl said.

* * *

**- Old Apartment, Passau Bavaria, Germany - Real Life -  
- 03:15 PM Germany, 11:15 PM Japan, Saturday December 23, 2017 -**

The young woman rose her sight from the book she was reading as the A-in-C major sound reached her ears. Her sight went towards the source of the sound, her computer. Standing up, she approached the device and saw as the webpage she had been glancing before began to flicker.

- "So it begins again..."

* * *

_To: Cervantes at TheWorldR2 dot com  
__From: -encrypted-  
Attachment: -encrypted-_

_Subject: Install_

_Install._

* * *

_To: Player at TheWorldR2 dot com  
From: RyougaZell atTheWorldR2 dot com  
Subject: And so... it begins._

_Do you wish to load the Save Clear File from Gathering of the Unwilling?_

_-Yes  
-No_

_Thank you for your preference and for reading! Things have started to move. How will things develop? Only time shall tell. Do be aware that updates will not be as frequent as they were on the first story. But never fear, this story will definitely progress. What fate awaits our heroes? Who are this new mysterious players? Who is the German woman? Do share what you think and expect from this new development. And if you can... go read Persona 3: Memories of You as well._

_Until the next time._


End file.
